GoDaddy

GoDaddy's collection of templates houses 300 designs. Templates are designed for various industry categories such as business, finance, law, education, health, beauty, music, portfolio, wedding, restaurants and more. So chances are, you will find a design template that suits your needs.

All GoDaddy's templates come pre-structured and pre-populated with content. Instead of the standard "This is a heading" or "Loren ipsum" all templates come with actual content, making it easy for you to just replace the content with your own and saving you time especially if you are unsure of your design capabilities. Other website builders that offer pre-populated templates are Wix and IM Creator.

However, there are major drawbacks of GoDaddy's website builder and one of which is once you've pick a template, you can't change to another template without losing your content.

Another issue to consider is that GoDaddy doesn't allow you to edit the HTML or CSS codes of the templates. But if you don't intend on customizing a template through the HTML/CSS codes, then this should not be a concern for you.

And finally, GoDaddy's templates are not responsive. Instead, GoDaddy automatically generates a mobile version of your website. While you can disable or hide any elements from your mobile website, you will need to be on the Business or Business Plus plan if you want to change the layout or colors of your mobile website.

GoDaddy's website builder uses the drag-and-drop technology, allowing you to literally drag and drop elements where you want them to how. Just like the editors of Wix, Website.com and IM Creator, GoDaddy gives you full control over the placement of your content.

The website builder's interface is very user-friendly. All tools are laid out on the one-column floating toolbar – you can even drag and place the sidebar anywhere on the editor window.

GoDaddy doesn't offer as big a selection of tools and gadgets as Wix does, but you will find all the basic tools you need to build a website. Site action controls are menus are found on the header toolbar, including a Undo/Redo feature.

GoDaddy's editor automatically extends the length of your webpage as you add content. However, if you remove the content, the footer doesn't readjust itself. There are also no drag handles to easily adjust the page length. To re-adjust the page length, you will need to do so via the Page Background Settings panel.

One more thing to mention, while adding new pages is simple, GoDaddy doesn't offer any standard page types like other website builders (such as Wix and Website.com) do – About, Contact, Gallery, etc. Adding a page on GoDaddy's editor gives you a blank page.

One major plus though, GoDaddy allows you to create backup copies of your website whenever you want. In addition, you can save up to five copies of your website and there is no time limit on using the backups. By saving multiple copies of your website, you are not restricted to restoring only the most recent version.

GoDaddy's website builder is meant for creating simple websites and it comes with sufficient tools to setup a decent website.

However, important features such as SEO are only available on the Business or Business Plus plans – you will find that constant upgrades may required to achieve your website goals. So, while the GoDaddy's features offered are useful, your access to them is dependent on if you are willing to pay for them time and again.

GoDaddy's website builder comes with an extensive collection of stock images. In addition, each template comes with a set of theme photos.

All images you upload are saved in your online storage for use on any of your pages. You can also connect your Facebook and Instagram accounts to use your photos on those services.

Image editing on the Personal plan is only limited to cropping, zoom, resize and border effects.

Users on the Business or Business Plus plans have access to a set of Photoshop-like options (powered by Aviary) for editing their images. Combine this powerful image editor with GoDaddy's extensive collections of images, GoDaddy's image options are one of the best amongst other website builders on the market.

Like many of its competition, GoDaddy offers free domain registration with an annual subscription on all its website builder plans. But this free domain offer only applies to the initial purchase term, after the initial purchase term, domain names will be renewed at the then-current renewal price.

You can access your domain manager from your GoDaddy account dashboard. From your Domain Manager, you can manage various domain settings, including domain registrant information, auto-renewal, domain locking, private registration and manage DNS.

All GoDaddy website builder plans come with free 1-year email services. But unlike Wix and Squarespace, your email service is powered by Microsoft Office 365. Like the domain registration, after the free 1-year term, the email service will be automatically renewed at the then-current price.

If there's any feature that put GoDaddy ahead of its competitors, it's their customer support. All GoDaddy's support channels are available 24/7, 365 days a year, regardless of which plan you are using. Many competitors do not offer phone support and for those who do, you would have to be subscribed to the higher plans, and it's seldom 24/7/365.

GoDaddy also offers live chat and email support as well as a comprehensive library of helpful tips and guides.

GoDaddy's website builder is very easy-to-use, but it does lack the many bells and whistles that other website builders offer. It is ideal of small businesses, designers, musician or professionals who need to build a website that's professional-looking and don't require any eCommerce or blogging functionality.

If you want need more features and functionality, you're better off going with website builders like Wix, Weebly or Website.com. But if you need superb customer and technical support, GoDaddy is definitely a top contender with their 24/7/365 phone support.

Unfortunately, true to its up-selling reputation, you are bound to come across many "upgrade now" offers from the time you submit your service purchase form to the time you build and launch your website.